WEll, lets give the man a chance. Probably Apple is doomed. but lets wait and see.

Welcome to HP redux. Slow downward spiral.

If Adobe isn't already working on it I would recommend that they get together with Redhat and release Creative Suite for Linux. A professional exodus is imminent and I think creative pros do not want to move to Windows. I would switch to Linux in a heartbeat if CS was there. Apple hates pros, and puppies. Sell!

I just want to know why someone would take a company so successful, that has used this formula to pull out of such a trench in the marketplace to rise to the biggest company in the world in market capitalization, and change it? Why change what isn't broken?

For one thing there are stagnant areas within Apple that need to be addressed. For example Mac desktops. Mac Software in general is being ignored, one example is no iBooks for Mac OS/X.

Quote:

Alan Mulally once said that the problem with most CEOs is that they're driving by the shareholders instead of the product. If you have the product, you have the sales, you have the revenue, you have the profits, and therefore you have the shareholders.

Tell that to RIM or HP who have tablets that don't sell. Having product does not assure profits or even sales. You need to market that stuff and people need to want it.

There is one thing that worries me slightly and that is that there's no "Mac OS" equivalent to Scott Forstall.

In case you forgot, the guy who you're searching for is Craig Federighi. We haven't seen much of him save for a few keynotes, but he's an Apple veteran with ample experience. I do agree that it's a bit worrisome to not see his name up there, and what that could mean for the Mac OS long-term. I posted this next bit on another site, but I'll add it here just to give some perspective on why I think they made Cook CEO, comments were in reaction to a BusinessWeek story on iOS SVP Scott Forstall:

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Cook was the only choice that made sense. They needed someone with global knowledge, anyone else would be inappropriate. Sure, Apple has a deep bench with many smart people, but consider the alternatives:

Schiller - He's a marketing guy, so no (See Ballmer at Microsoft)
Ive - Probably doesn't have the software engineering chops to do it properly
Cue - Knows the software (after all, he led the teams that built iTunes), less so on hardware
Mansfield - Background is in hardware, even before he came to Apple

Giving Forstall the job would be like a big 'FU' to the Mac teams, implying that iOS is the only thing that matters now; unless they found a way to shape the role such that he HAD to be involved with the Mac, to make sure it was still being developed.

I was about to say the same thing. Steve loved the gadgets he was creating and dreamed of them at night. His enthusiasm was obvious and contagious. When the passion and driving force move along, we get today's Microsoft.

Many companies fall on hard times after that driving force leaves. A ship needs a captain even if the winds are favorable and the sky's clear. You see this all the time with smaller companies. When the owner leaves and transfers the company to somebody else the operation often falls apart. Conversely if you're owner loves the business he is in they can drive the company through thick and thin.

Any new CEO worth his/her salt has to put their stamp if they wish to be effective. They usually have a short window to do it. What Cook seems to be doing overall seems minor - in part because he knows Apple so well and vice versa - but hopefully, will still reflect his persona and tell us something about his management style.

In the longer haul, he will be judged by the next couple of major product introductions. All other judgments are premature, and probably immaterial, if that goes well.

Cook is also a strong believer in Apple's culture of product development and design, though his colleagues and friends say that he is "not a product guy," an observation also noted by Jobs in Walter Isaacson's recently published biography about the former Apple chief. In a briefing of a new service Cook asked an employee, "tell me again how this helps me sell more phones?"

Tim is just watching for what Sales Support is giving to Sales. Unlike another poster, featureitis does not improve sales

Especially watch out for a new service that pushes more people away than pulls towards your product.

Please stop treating your customers as idiots.
Add an "expert" mode to your stuff and let your customers do what they want.

The persons that want Apple to think for then don't need to use "expert" mode. They can use the best end user experience in the business.

BTW. If you are going to make all you computers non upgradeable: ok, but please have reasonable prices for upgrades in Apple store. I can pay a 25% Apple tax, but 200 dollar for a hard drive that cost Apple 25 is ridicules.

Your "expert mode" is knowing to buy a hard disk from a third party. I'm all for those not knowing better paying a little more for convenience.

If Tim Cook is not a "product guy" then who is, now that Steve is gone? That's what concerns me the most, looking at the 10-year picture.

I believe that the picture over a ten year trajectory is probably pretty clear. Where Apple needs to be particularly diligent is in keeping pace with new technologies, the post-ten year horizon. Apple has, whether one agrees with the expression or not, pretty much created the culture of a post PC age. The term is in the main stream. Steve sought to do an end-run around Microsoft's dominance in PC's and as a consequence, Apple is in the news and minds today with not much mention of MS.

New technologies could usher in new players who might themselves circumvent Apple's dominance. However, the profound nature of new developments might make it difficult for Apple to play catch-up should this occur and so, the leadership needs to do what Steve did in one respect and apprise themselves of developments on the periphery and in other fields.

I hope that Apple uses some of its cash to get into outside labs and to help get new technologies out, thereby remaining relevant. Perhaps Apple might fund fellowships for bright young researchers and generate good will in universities.

I like Tim Cook. I think that he is the right person to lead after such a profound loss. He strikes me as being a very humane person, an excellent manager and someone who probably understands that to replace Steve Jobs, the people Steve trusted need to be given considerable responsibility and authority. This was apparently instigated by Steve himself in respect of Jonny Ive and possibly Scott Forstall and maybe others.

If you want to keep Apple going down the same path there is one thing that absolutely must be done. Keep the marketing department in check. Never let them decide what products get produced. Never let them have any say in the design of the products. Put a firewall around those people and keep them away from everyone else. If you don't they will eventually escape their bonds and gradually take over the company. And then they will turn it into GM.

Jobs thought plenty clear. He wanted to make the best consumer products possible. He also went after education, and creative markets.

Microsoft was given the business field by IBM. Government and big business would only use IBM products for the longest time. IBM put Microsoft's product on its computers and the rest was history. It didn't have to work too hard to capture that market.

Going after enterprise was a losing battle for Apple. That has been changing for a while. Apple is now selling iPhones and iPod Touches as point of sale devices to third party companies like Lowes. The IPad is becoming entrenched in the medical field. Businesses are starting to embrace Macs.

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Originally Posted by Blastdoor

The biggest thing holding the Mac back in the enterprise right now is Apple's total lack of effort. If Apple would just start providing better sales, support, and IT-oriented management tools, I think the Mac could enjoy years of strong growth in the enterprise. Macs/PCs may be "trucks", but there are an awful lot of trucks being sold, and there always will be. Even though it's not a growing market, a growing share of a large market is still a good way to make money. I'm guessing Cook can see that more clearly than Jobs did.

... (many I know have used MobileMe/.mac for 9 years. Since Apple closes MobileMe we are forced to use 10.72 + a new mac. Somehow Apple manage to make Vista version of iCloud, but their most loyal fans they screw)

"Loyalty", as a customer is measured by how often you buy a company's products. If you were one of Apple's "most loyal" customers, you'd already own a Mac that can run Lion. Being a fan is nice, but companies make products for customers.

Ive is talented incredibly talented in multi-dimensions. But I've seen nothing to indicate that he has the skill set required for a CEO. And knowing his incredible design skill set, I doubt he even entertains an interest in being the CEO.
It's good to remember that Jobs wasn't a designer. Although he used design thinking, he was really a leader and visionary who understood the importance of design.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TechNewb

Apple needs a product driven CEO, we have seen their buisness model with out one. Is Ive the only senior exec capable of the job? Cook has been great in the back seat, And should remain there. Look out for a Walmart style sell out of Apple, where profits are a more important capital than humans and innovation.

Scary quote:
how about a better phone sells more phones? A better mp3 player sells more mp3 players. A better OS sells more. A better design sells more. A better product sells more. Apple is already a charity, they don't need to give donations, the greatness in their products is their donation to society. Lose that, lose everything, again...

Tell that to RIM or HP who have tablets that don't sell. Having product does not assure profits or even sales. You need to market that stuff and people need to want it.

The point is RIM and HP are concentrating on sales rather than the products.
They *don't* put the product first as a goal, so the products they end up with have no internal sense, integrity, charm, emotion or attraction (and therefore, poor sales.)

Any new CEO worth his/her salt has to put their stamp if they wish to be effective. They usually have a short window to do it. What Cook seems to be doing overall seems minor - in part because he knows Apple so well and vice versa - but hopefully, will still reflect his persona and tell us something about his management style.

In the longer haul, he will be judged by the next couple of major product introductions. All other judgments are premature, and probably immaterial, if that goes well.

It's obvious that Cook is already a failure. Look at everything that has happened under his watch:

If Cook is going to streamline Apple why doesn't he start by streamlining iTunes first?

God, I hope not!!

iTunes is the single best thing that Apple makes. Integration with iTunes (and its powerful versatility) is the reason why iOS devices are superior to Android. A dumbed down iTunes makes for far less capable and compelling iOS products, and brings Android closer to being competitive.

Indeed. It's pretty clear where we're headed. Us old Mac heads may not like it but as Steve put it: "death is very likely the single best invention of life. It is life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new."

Mac is the old and it will be cleared for the new. Those who don't catch up will eventually be gone or irrelevant anyway. The new generation won't be sulking over its demise because they'll be loving iOS. They already are.

It's clear that iOS will evolve to become the replacement to Mac OSX. I'm not saying that iOS will be running on Mac's, I'm saying that Mac's will too be replaced, by more able iOS devices.

OSX was designed for the mouse and keyboard. Does anything in Apple's product strategy indicate that they continue pursuing development and use of the mouse and keyboard? Then does anybody expect them to redesign OSX to work with touch and speech when they already have an OS that was designed specifically for those methods of input?

Mac OSX is an incredible operating system and it won't be replaced over night. But it will be replaced. Look to the next major iOS device (other than the Apple TV) to set the course for the future of productivity computing.

I can see this and it's something that Apple has been working at for years now. The HUB system. We now have air play that lets us mirror our iDevices to to our TV. We have iCloud to back up and store or data. We have easy to use, friendly and intuitive devices, iPod, iPhone and iPad that we take with us and keep at our side at most times. We have almost all the pieces we are close.

Give it a few years, the power that is now in towers and in our Macs will be in our iDevices, we will have Apple TV that will have the built in airplay, and we will have a much fast more reliable iCloud maybe with even more free storage if 5gigs even become too small for basic needs. Everything working together, wirelessly, freely and at our side.

I am not saying this is the way it will be and the only possible outcome, but it sure seems like a possible one and one that Apple will usher in if it keeps on track.

iTunes is the single best thing that Apple makes. Integration with iTunes (and its powerful versatility) is the reason why iOS devices are superior to Android. A dumbed down iTunes makes for far less capable and compelling iOS products, and brings Android closer to being competitive.

I can see this and it's something that Apple has been working at for years now. The HUB system. We now have air play that lets us mirror our iDevices to to our TV. We have iCloud to back up and store or data. We have easy to use, friendly and intuitive devices, iPod, iPhone and iPad that we take with us and keep at our side at most times. We have almost all the pieces we are close.

Give it a few years, the power that is now in towers and in our Macs will be in our iDevices, we will have Apple TV that will have the built in airplay, and we will have a much fast more reliable iCloud maybe with even more free storage if 5gigs even become too small for basic needs. Everything working together, wirelessly, freely and at our side.

I am not saying this is the way it will be and the only possible outcome, but it sure seems like a possible one and one that Apple will usher in if it keeps on track.

And you can barely write a complete paragraph or compute a mathematical equation on any of it. But you can consume all the games, music, and videos infinitum to turn out idiots by the dozen.

Apple needs a product driven CEO, we have seen their buisness model with out one. Is Ive the only senior exec capable of the job? Cook has been great in the back seat, And should remain there. Look out for a Walmart style sell out of Apple, where profits are a more important capital than humans and innovation.

Quote:
In a briefing of a new service Cook asked an employee, "tell me again how this helps me sell more phones?"

Scary quote:
how about a better phone sells more phones? A better mp3 player sells more mp3 players. A better OS sells more. A better design sells more. A better product sells more. Apple is already a charity, they don't need to give donations, the greatness in their products is their donation to society. Lose that, lose everything, again...

A product-driven CEO looks at the features of the product (including related services), and asks why a particular feature will make more people want to buy the product. If it does not make the product more desirable, it should not be included. Desirable products will have higher sales, which seems to be exactly the point that Mr. Cook is making. If an employee cannot tell Mr. Cook how something will help sell more phones, it means they cannot explain how that service makes the phone a better and more desirable product.

Jony Ive is great, but doing something like re-imagining the TV is not exactly his strength. Apple needs a product centric senior executive who can re-imagine markets, devices, business models, or at least spark and manage the discussion and action around that. Jony Ive is great, but he is not that person.

Tim is no "Yes man." A month or so ago I read an article about him in a meeting where the topic came up about something needing to be seen to overseas. He assigned someone at the meeting to do it.

A half hour later, still during the meeting, he looked up at the guy and said "Why are you still here?"

The guy got in a taxi, went straight to the airport, and flew overseas.

I think Cook is no pushover, and as many have said, he was handpicked by Steve as were most of the Executive team. If we applaud Steve for being a visionary, don't you think he had the vision as to who to put in place at the top level? And most of those guys have been there for years... Forstall since NeXT days, Cook for 11 years.

Cook was COO. Of course he going to continue to streamline the company. That's what he does. And he was picked by Steve because Steve knew he wouldn't screw with success.

I'm quite comfortable with the Executives in place at Apple, as much as I miss Steve.

A product-driven CEO looks at the features of the product (including related services), and asks why a particular feature will make more people want to buy the product. If it does not make the product more desirable, it should not be included. Desirable products will have higher sales, which seems to be exactly the point that Mr. Cook is making. If an employee cannot tell Mr. Cook how something will help sell more phones, it means they cannot explain how that service makes the phone a better and more desirable product.

As a shareholder, I would really prefer that Apple NOT do a buyback of a dividend. I didn't put my money into Apple stock to receive cash payments -- if that's what I wanted, I would have bought a bond.

I want Apple to invest their cash in ways that I as an individual never could. I can't build data centers or buy patents etc. Apple can do those things, and the return on those investments surely must be better than the zero point nothing that I could earn in interest.

Heck, I'd rather Apple start building toll roads and bridges than do a buyback or dividend.

You really don't know the market do you?

You could have bought a bond, (seriously at the current rate of return) or you could have bought into, for instance "LGCY" a couple of months ago and received both a dividend AND earned about $8 per share if sold last Friday... (which I did.) You would have made $8,000 on 1,000 shares and $540 in dividends. That's about $8,540 In two months. Just for putting your money in the right place. Seriously.

I'm just comparing bonds vs. stocks like you stated... Leaving the bonds out, but anyone can look up their current bonds.

We could go round and round with this.

However, I'm guessing that you don't actually invest in the Market. So stop pretending that you do.

If you really invents and If you have money on "AAPL" you should watch the market. Don't just buy and wait. You could have gained quite often. Don't blindly hold onto a stock!

...Bye the way, if "AAPL" did a 'buy back', then your stock would go up. ...Depending on how much stock they re-purchased.

If Tim Cook is not a "product guy" then who is, now that Steve is gone? That's what concerns me the most, looking at the 10-year picture.

You know, was just reading a post re how MS killed their 'Courier' project. Seems there are no end of people who can envision new products at MS, but the problem is their hidebound corporate culture.

Seems to me there are plenty of people at Apple who could rise up to champion new products, and tweaks of old ones. From the sound of it, Cook is capable of taking care of keeping Apple's innovative culture in line. As long as that's the case, I expect the products will emerge.

If this does not happen, they DO have a gazillion dollars on hand. They can pretty much just buy a company that IS making an interesting new product and ramp it up. As long as they don't have infighting that actually resists new ideas, as MS does, they should be OK.

Also unlike MS (just as a for-instance, you could say the same about most any other middle-aged tech company), Apple has a number of products and technologies that are in their infancy, with a lot of room for growth ahead. Siri, for example, and iPads. Apple also has products that are long-in-the-tooth, like iPods and Mac Pro towers, and those will be scaled down or out. But companies like MS ONLY have legacy products, and their entire focus is on squeezing more out of them, whereas Apple is more or less willing to kill them and forge ahead.

I don't see a Disney dive on the horizon here. I think Apple may even outgrow the Jobs comeback for a while.

Say what you will about iKol he's right. Those are hideous sunglasses.

TechNewb quoted Tim Cook as saying: "In a briefing of a new service Cook asked an employee, "tell me again how this helps me sell more phones?""

Or you know, maybe he is less familiar w/the feature and he is going to be one of the people fielding questions about it, so he needs to understand it better so he can inform people of why it is better. He's an operations kinda guy, not a promoter, as many people liked to point out after the 4S rollout. If you don't know how to sell something, asking a sales person who has been working on these very thoughts or someone who was very involved in its creation how it helps sell phones is a good and correct question to ask. Of course, for all we know, this was a rhetorical question. Our entire source is a small cut n paste. *shrug*

"Loyalty", as a customer is measured by how often you buy a company's products. If you were one of Apple's "most loyal" customers, you'd already own a Mac that can run Lion. Being a fan is nice, but companies make products for customers.

+1 Agree 100%

"A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools." Douglas Adams

iTunes is the single best thing that Apple makes. Integration with iTunes (and its powerful versatility) is the reason why iOS devices are superior to Android. A dumbed down iTunes makes for far less capable and compelling iOS products, and brings Android closer to being competitive.

The concept of iTunes is wonderful, the implementation leaves a lot to be desired.

The concept of iTunes is wonderful, the implementation leaves a lot to be desired.

How is it badly implemented?

All software could use some tweaks here and there, but by far, it's the best thing Apple makes, including OSX and iOS. iTunes is literally the only Apple product (hardware or software) where I can say, "yes, that is exactly what I want".

The only thing I can think of that I would change is perhaps adding native support for other file formats such as Divx or FLAC.

Do I like or use everything that is in there? No, but I just turn those things off. Unlike a lot of Apple products, at least I actually have a choice instead of them arbitrarily taking features away that I might want.

iTunes is the single best thing that Apple makes. Integration with iTunes (and its powerful versatility) is the reason why iOS devices are superior to Android. A dumbed down iTunes makes for far less capable and compelling iOS products, and brings Android closer to being competitive.

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Originally Posted by iKol

Do you use Ping much?

Quote:

Originally Posted by jfanning

The concept of iTunes is wonderful, the implementation leaves a lot to be desired.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bsenka

How is it badly implemented?

All software could use some tweaks here and there, but by far, it's the best thing Apple makes, including OSX and iOS. iTunes is literally the only Apple product (hardware or software) where I can say, "yes, that is exactly what I want".

The only thing I can think of that I would change is perhaps adding native support for other file formats such as Divx or FLAC.

Do I like or use everything that is in there? No, but I just turn those things off. Unlike a lot of Apple products, at least I actually have a choice instead of them arbitrarily taking features away that I might want.

Debating the importance of iTunes is moot. It is becoming irrelevant with iCloud.

Let's not forget Steve was a clever guy. He learned from his mistakes in the past.

Tim has effectively been running Apple for many years and doing a rather good job. If Steve didn't trust him he would have got rid long ago.

I think Steve set up this team now to run the company for the next 10 - 15 years. It's clear they don't all get on but with Tim at the helm they all make it work as a team. The next CEO will probably come from the ranks below this. A life long Apple rising star who will prove themselves over the next 10 years.

That's one thing Steve realised - you don't just bring in an outsider to run Apple. You promote from within. Let people work their way up the ladder and the most capable person gets the job. It's how all companies used to be run and in my view it's how all good companies should be run.